Bobble
Head Doll Feature
Article in Wall Street Journal

Reprinted in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in March 2001

Last month, Jason Ray drove to
Chicago
from his home near
Minneapolis
and bought five cheap tickets to a Chicago Bulls basketball game.

Mr. Ray, 26 years old, didn't care about the game the
Bulls
were
playing
against the Milwaukee Bucks. He just wanted bobblehead dolls of Bulls
forward
Elton Brand. The Bulls were giving away the 7.5-inch statuettes with
jiggling,
oversized heads to the first 5,000 fans attending the game.

In
the sports-giveaway business, bobblehead dolls are becoming
the
Beanie
Babies of the new millennium. Also known as "bobbing heads" or
"nodders,"
bobbleheads were stadium staples in the 1960s and early '70s, when they
sold at souvenir stands for a couple of bucks. Now they're drawing a
rabid
new cult.

Two summers ago the San Francisco Giants, as part of a
series
of
turn-back-the-clock
promotions marking their last season at Candlestick Park, (renamed 3Com
Park) handed out a Willie Mays bobblehead. Twice the usual number of
fans
turned out.

This year more than 20 teams in Major League Baseball
have
scheduled
bobblehead giveaways, and have sold thousands of advance tickets for
those
games. A dozen National Basketball Association clubs have gotten into
the
act. Alexander Global Promotions Inc. of Bellevue, Wash., makes most of
the dolls -- 280,000 a month, in China. The company is developing
prototypes
for the Women's National Basketball Association and the PGA golf tour,
and PepsiCo has contracted it to make dolls of about 40 college
mascots,
including Stanford University's tree.

With their giant, springy heads, the kitschy bobbleheads
may
be
cute.
But the main reason for the fanaticism is a booming secondary market.
Bobbleheads
are fresh meat for collectors and dealers. Limited runs -- teams
generally
don't give away more than 10,000 dolls based on the likenesses of the
most
popular players -- create the instant scarcity that collectors covet.
Some
new dolls have sold for hundreds of dollars in Internet auctions.

At a game in Minneapolis last summer, fans camped out
overnight and
then pushed, shoved, bribed and argued in line for a giveaway of 10,000
bobbleheaded Kirby Pucketts. With dolls of the retired Minnesota Twins
outfielder in hand, some ticket holders didn't bother to stay for the
game.
"People in Minnesota don't riot," says Twins business executive Dave
St.
Peter. "But it was probably as close as we get."

Last month in Philadelphia, where people do riot, some
fans
enlisted
children to obtain dolls of 76ers guard Allen Iverson offered to 5,000
ticket holders 14 and under. Sixers senior vice president Dave Coskey
says
a pregnant woman asked for a doll for her unborn child. A fan said he
wanted
one for his critically ill daughter. Mr. Coskey told him he should be
at
the hospital, not at a basketball game. One patron was ejected for
threatening
a 76ers employee. "People were abusive," Mr. Coskey says.

The most elaborate scam took place in December, when the
NBA's
Minnesota
Timberwolves gave away a doll of forward Wally Szczerbiak. Everyone in
attendance got a coupon numbered 1, 2, 3 or 4, and a lottery drawing
was
held at halftime. Crunch, the team mascot, selected the winner, No. 3.

As fans picked up their dolls, Timberwolves officials
realized
that
the color was slightly off on some of the coupons. They surmised that
somebody
had taken coupons to a copy center, and then either amassed dolls with
the fakes or sold winning numbers for $5 or $10 apiece. Police were
called,
but there were no arrests, says Timberwolves marketing director Chris
Wright.

Dealers post dolls for auction on eBay a few days before
a
giveaway
to establish a price. Earlier this month, a seller listed a doll of
Orlando
Magic forward Grant Hill three days early; the doll fetched $55.25.
Others
go from arena to arena collecting freebies for resale. "I've gotten at
least 100 in the last year," says Mr. Ray, who manages a
newspaper-distribution
depot. He picked up five Elton Brand dolls with the tickets he bought
in
Chicago. He bought 10 more from fans outside the United Center. He says
he has sold some on his bobblehead Web site for more than $30 each.

A buyer on eBay paid $315 for an Iverson doll this
month. A
set of
four
Twins dolls (Mr. Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva)
recently sold for $375. Five Timberwolves dolls (Mr. Szczerbiak, Kevin
Garnett, Chauncey Billups, Terrell Brandon and Sam Mitchell) fetched
$305.01.
The Twins set, collectors say, sold for about $700 last summer soon
after
the dolls came out.

Tim Hunter, a bobblehead dealer in Reno, Nev., and
author of
"Bobbing
Head Dolls 1960-2000," a price guide, predicts the new dolls won't
sustain
the prices amateurs are paying for them. Of the Iverson doll, he says:
"In two years it'll be going for $20."

Crude bobbleheads of policemen, clowns and baseball
players
were
made
in the early 1900s. But the '60s were the real heyday, with the
spring-attached,
boyish heads atop the uniforms of most pro sports teams, as well as
dolls
of pop icons including the Beatles, Fidel Castro and Colonel Sanders.
Some
had magnets, so they could be attached to dashboards. The sports dolls
weren't big sellers.

Vintage nodders are categorized by facial style ("moon
face,"
"boy
face,"
"realistic face") and other physical characteristics ("toes up," "ear
pads").
Mr. Hunter says the most valuable bobblehead ever was a black Houston
Colt
.45s baseball player with a realistic face (of nobody in particular)
circa
1962, which sold two years ago for $8,400.

Unlike the new poly-resin and ceramic dolls, most of the
older
bobbleheads
were made of papier-mache, which collectors say allowed for finer
painting
detail. Serious collectors can even identify some of the Japanese-made
dolls by their artists. Mr. Hunter particularly admires one artist for
the "magnificent shading" on the cheeks of white-faced Milwaukee Braves
dolls from the early '60s. "They're really miniature works of art," Mr.
Hunter says.

The modern nodders have their own distinction:
verisimilitude.
The
Iverson
doll, for instance, displays the tattoos on his arms and neck, his
cornrow
hair, chin stubble and diamond earrings. Lara White, the 76ers'
marketing
vice president, boasts that it's the most lifelike in the NBA.

Players are finicky about how they are presented. Mr.
Garnett
of the
Timberwolves complained that on the doll his biceps and triceps weren't
"cut," or well-defined. Stephon Marbury of the New Jersey Nets insisted
on earrings. Another NBA player told the doll's manufacturer: "My
butt's
too big."

When Dave Winfield learned that the Twins wanted to make
bobbleheads
of him and Mr. Puckett to honor their induction into the Baseball Hall
of Fame, he had one stipulation, a Twins executive says: The doll of
the
6-foot-6 Mr. Winfield had to be an inch taller than that of his pudgy,
5-foot-8 former teammate. Mr. Winfield won't admit to requesting that,
but he likes the way it turned out. "It's more realistic," he says. "I
was a tall guy."

Credit: Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal Reproduced with
permission
of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is
prohibited
without permission.